The present invention relates generally to the field of telecommunications, and more specifically to the management of call processing information. In a specific aspect, the invention provides systems and methods which facilitate the ability to port a telephone number from one local carrier to another carrier.
Until recently, most regions in the United States have been serviced by a single local telephone service provider. For example, in the Inter-Mountain Region, local telephone service was only provided by U S West Communications. In an effort to provide competition in the local service provider market, Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996. As part of this act, all companies are provided with the opportunity to compete in the local telephone service market.
To many individuals and businesses, a telephone number is an important asset. Indeed, studies have shown that a significant number of people and businesses would be hesitant or unwilling to change their local service provider if they were not allowed to keep their same telephone number. To address this problem, the FCC promulgated regulations under the Telecommunications Act to allow customers to port their same telephone number to a new carrier, referred to as Local Number Portability ("LNP"). Under the regulations, each carrier must provide supporting LNP systems which allow customers to order a change in carriers (order mediation) and to service the order to change the carrier (service mediation) within a specific time frame.
As part of the Telecommunications Act, a Number Portability Administration Center ("NPAC") has been chartered and includes a Service Management System ("SMS") which performs the mediation between two carriers when a number is to be ported. More specifically, when a number is to be ported the SMS receives a request from the carrier that is requesting to have the number ported to the carrier. This carrier is referred to as the "new carrier." The carrier that was in possession of the number to be ported is referred to as the "old carrier." It is the responsibility of the NPAC to ensure that both carriers have specified the correct information for the port to occur. If all the information is in order, the new carrier will be notified by the SMS and will then be responsible for activating the ported number.
Under the FCC regulations, each carrier must therefore have the capability to initiate, modify, and provide concurrence for service orders for consumers and businesses who wish to change local service providers and keep their current phone number. Carriers must coordinate these LNP orders (or subscriptions) with the NPAC. Once LNP subscriptions are approved by the NPAC, the capability must exist for these subscription changes/updates to be distributed to the appropriate network elements so that proper service can be provisioned.
Hence, it is an object of the present invention to provide systems and methods for managing call processing information, and in particular for facilitating local number portability when requested by an individual or business. In one particular aspect, it is an object of the invention to provide a system and method for provisioning network elements through an interface to a local service management system. Preferably, such an interface which will capture LNP subscription data from the local service management system and then provision multiple network elements. Further, such an interface will preferably be able to provision across network elements of different types and across different vendor platforms. It would also be desirable if such an interface were able to manage and configure the network elements. Other advantages and features of the invention will be described in greater detail hereinafter.